09III/09IV (093/094) Nuclear Submarine Thread

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
I'm not a war nerd. But do you think Chinese strategist will read this and say; gee Americans think our boats are more impressive than we do. We can stop development now and take a long weekend!

Of course not, but that doesn't necessarily mean statements like those aren't made with those intentions in mind.

Remember that all information warfare ammunition fired into the arena serve the purpose of shaping thoughts. Whether those penetrate into influence at some CCP level is honestly something we don't need to wonder. How the Chinese decision makers respond to examples of "Americans are saying they are weak and China is strong" isn't the only aim here.
 

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
I'm not a war nerd. But do you think Chinese strategist will read this and say; gee Americans think our boats are more impressive than we do. We can stop development now and take a long weekend!

How, when you are confessing to their detection using computational analysis.

This happens when the sub has become as quiet as the ambient noise, so you will need computers to pick the submarine's noise from the background noise.

PLAN does not need the Americans to tell how quiet or noisy their subs are. Use your own sensors, or computational models.
 

subotai1

Junior Member
Registered Member
I'm not a war nerd. But do you think Chinese strategist will read this and say; gee Americans think our boats are more impressive than we do. We can stop development now and take a long weekend!
Everything you see fielded today started years ago. A submarine that started development 10+ years ago vs detection equipment that started development 3+ years ago.
 

Xizor

Captain
Registered Member
A doubt

Why has China not made any foray yet into Pumpjet technology? Why do they lag in Submarine development in General.
I don't intend to rant here but I must say I'm not so impressed with the pace theyve set so far regarding Submarines. Even if one can't see a quantum leap with regards to acoustic signatures, one would've expected foray into things like Pumpjets already. It ought to be a low hanging fruit considering China's current capabilities.

What one wouldn't give to see a Chinese breakthrough akin to the Seawolf of the USN. It'd be of more significance than a 003 Nuclear Flat carrier.
 

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
Priorities. Then there is ease of access to requisite technologies.
China has had way more limited access to technologies relevant to nuclear submarines.
If you look at Chinese conventional submarines they are not that far behind the leading edge.

The Chinese nuclear industry today has way more experience in reactor design than they had 20 years ago.
Chinese metallurgy is also much better than it used to be.
Chinese supercomputers are more sophisticated.
Then there are the available weapons. China today has the Club-S and will soon have the JL-2.
China has new torpedos.
China is the leading manufacturer in the world of lithium-ion batteries.
China has made new production facilities for both nuclear and conventional subs.

You put all this together and I think you will see a Cambrian explosion of submarine designs similar to what we saw in the surface ships in the last two decades sooner or later.
 

voyager1

Captain
Registered Member
A doubt

Why has China not made any foray yet into Pumpjet technology? Why do they lag in Submarine development in General.
I don't intend to rant here but I must say I'm not so impressed with the pace theyve set so far regarding Submarines. Even if one can't see a quantum leap with regards to acoustic signatures, one would've expected foray into things like Pumpjets already. It ought to be a low hanging fruit considering China's current capabilities.

What one wouldn't give to see a Chinese breakthrough akin to the Seawolf of the USN. It'd be of more significance than a 003 Nuclear Flat carrier.
dont we have rumours regarding Pumpjet technology, maybe even a confirmation?


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This month, Chinese state TV channel CCTV 13 broadcast an interview with a top Chinese naval engineer, Rear Admiral Ma Weiming.
In the interview, he stated that the PLAN is fitting its newest nuclear attack submarines with a “shaftless” rim-driven pumpjet, a revolutionary and silent propulsion system.

Mind you that this is from 2017. And there have also been rumours about IEPS on the new submarines

While I would say that the submarine construction program has been abysmal relative to the surface program (excluding the new massive sub construction base), the technology development seems on point and even accelerating with some cutting edge tech introduced.
 

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
While I would say that the submarine construction program has been abysmal relative to the surface program (excluding the new massive sub construction base), the technology development seems on point and even accelerating with some cutting edge tech introduced.

The surface ship construction program also had its difficulties. You have the Type 052 which was revolutionary for China as it was the first blue ocean destroyer with gas turbines they made. But it had terrible weapons and sensors integration. It was all over the place. China then had its access to the LM2500 turbines cut off. They made the Type 051B because of this. It went a step back and switched to steam turbines. While China in the meantime managed to make their own integrated combat system and reverse engineered some systems like the short range SAMs in the Type 052 and some of the sensors, both sensors and weapons were obsolete. So they imported the Sovremennyy destroyers from Russia. At the same time they reverse engineered Ukrainian naval gas turbines. They reverse engineered sensors and weapon systems from the Sovremennyy destroyers. The result is the Type 052B. This was the successful integration of all those technologies and is basically what the original Type 052 should have been. You get the Type 051C which is another steam turbine powered ship which is larger in displacement than the 052s thus far that has heavier SAMs like the ones on Soviet cruisers. Then you start seeing expansions of the Type 052B with more modern Chinese sensors, enlarged ship hulls, UVLS, and you get to the Type 052C/D.

This took a couple of decades to happen. Now if you look at the submarines the process is much different. China could basically either have made a sort of Type 052 equivalent where they mishmash all available technology together and use those boats as test beds. Or they can try to improve their available submarines in a more iterative fashion. Or they could have bought boats from other countries.

So you have the Type 039 which is basically an integration of West European submarine technology. I suppose you could call this the equivalent of the Type 052 in terms of conventional submarines but the integration was more successful. Then they bought the Kilo from Russia. They reverse engineered the Club-S cruise missile they got with the Kilo. They made a larger conventional submarine, the Type 039A and put those cruise missiles in it. So this would be a sort of Type 052B equivalent I guess.

With regards to the nuclear submarines, the development is a lot more complicated. China basically had no technology transfer and had to do their first nuclear submarine by themselves as the Type 091. They basically copied the hull design from a US nuclear submarine then put the rest of the components the best they could. The Type 093 is supposed to be an extended hull version of the Type 091. But to be honest available information on this submarine is quite limited. Like we don't even know precisely which reactor it uses. What we do know is that back when they started development of this the first Chinese civilian LWRs with modern Western reactor technology were just being started up. Which weapons it uses is also, frankly, kind of unknown and mostly speculation. What we do know is they have been improving the hull shape and improving quieting technologies in later types. This is likely an infusion of technology from the conventional submarine program I think. The later batches which are dubbed the Type 093G. These I suspect have a new nuclear reactor type. I say this because if you look at the civilian nuclear program then it makes sense they would upgrade the reactor design at this point. This is about the time China started making their own civilian reactor designs.
 

PiSigma

"the engineer"
dont we have rumours regarding Pumpjet technology, maybe even a confirmation?


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Mind you that this is from 2017. And there have also been rumours about IEPS on the new submarines

While I would say that the submarine construction program has been abysmal relative to the surface program (excluding the new massive sub construction base), the technology development seems on point and even accelerating with some cutting edge tech introduced.
You will have to ask @Skywatcher to confirm, he wrote the article.
 
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